He died in 1630, in his sixtieth year, (with the
prospect of starvation before him,) of a fever which he caught when on
a journey to Ratisbon, whither he had gone in the attempt to get part
of his pay!
[Footnote 1: _Johann Keppler's Leben und Wirken: nach neuerlich
aufgefundenen Manuscripten bearbeitet._ Stuttgart, 1813.]
In what bewildering and hampering environment he found himself with the
"Tuebingen doctors" and the "Wuertemberg divines," his letters reveal. On
the publication of the "Prodromus," Hafenreffer wrote to warn
him:--"God forbid you should endeavor to bring your hypothesis openly
into argument with the Holy Scriptures! I require of you to treat the
subject merely as a mathematician, and to leave the peace of the Church
undisturbed." To the Tuebingen doctors he replied:--"The Bible speaks to
me of things belonging to human life as men are used to speak of them.
It is no manual of Optics or of Astronomy; it has a higher object in
view. It is a culpable misuse of it to seek in it for answers on
worldly things. Joshua wished for the day to be lengthened. God
hearkened to his wish. How? This is not to be inquired after." And
surely the long-vexed argument has never since unfolded better
statement than in the words of Kepler:--"The day will soon break when
pious simplicity will be ashamed of its blind superstition,--when men
will recognize truth in the book of Nature as well as in the Holy
Scriptures, and rejoice in the two revelations.
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